01-14 Tuesday: Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. Mask Festival on the Volcanic Ash Plains. While the exotic Mask Festival in Rabaul takes place in mid-July each year and gives visitors to East New Britain a chance to witness a wide range of cultural dancing, singing, ritual performance, with a variety of arts and crafts also on display, we saw a mini version of this today. It is very hot with high humidity. In addition to the dancing and singing, we enjoyed some local flavors and coconut water. The food consisted of a roasted banana (with little to no flavor, I think it was a green banana), some sort of greens in sauce, and a piece of chicken in the same sauce. The chicken and greens were tasty. They also served fresh fruit. When we came in, they gave us this woven “purse” with shell money, mango, lychee, and peanuts still in the shell on the stems. These were traded for the coconut water. You didn’t really need to trade them but that was the thought process. We didn’t keep our purses but they were ours to keep if we wanted them.
The money exchange spot on the ship this morning was impacted this morning, so we didn’t get any local currency. Of note, this was not available at home for exchange. They do accept US dollars. We aren’t really in the market for souvenirs anyway, maybe a cold beer, but there was nothing like that available. We have 2 more Papua New Guinea ports, but maybe we will just skip getting currency.
We were back to the ship a little bit past noon. We were really just too hot to eat. We dropped things in the cabin and headed to the Crow’s Nest for a cold drink. There we ran into Tom again, and his sister Rose who is traveling with him. We chatted with them for a bit, then on to a small bite for lunch, and back to the cabin for Rummikub. Dinner was one of the best we have had onboard! We started with coconut shrimp, then a salad, followed by Beef Wellington, and a sugar free lemon chiffon for dessert. We played Black Jack for a little bit but I lost my limit quickly. Stuart played on and then to a slot machine, where I watched. Back to the cabin and off to bed. I tweaked my hip a little bit when getting in the vans yesterday. It is off to bed with a muscle relaxer!
01-15 Wednesday: Today is Kiriwina Island, in Papua New Guinea. There are no tours in this port. It is also a tendered port. We decided not to get off and have a pool day instead. A couple reasons for this: 1) I don’t want to irritate by hip. It is much better and I want it to stay that way. 2) It is very hot, of course, and we were told the only thing to do was go to the beach there. Any way it was a nice day by the pool, lunch, to the cabin, and a special treat tonight with the Wine Cellar Dinner in Canaletto.
We
had such a good time! We sat with another couple Maureen and Paul. They were a
delight to chat with. They are from Sacramento. We exchanged numbers and for
sure we will stay in touch. These are the first people we have met that their
children complain about their traveling. I thought I would never run into another
couple with those issues! They were on the Africa cruise, but we never met them
on there. They are also going on our South Pacific cruise so that is fun to know.
As some other couples were leaving, who were also acquainted with Paul and
Maureen, they introduced us. It is a small world, they were all from
California, one woman was even born in Vallejo! Stuart gambled a bit, I
watched. I have already spent my limit for losing. There was no show tonight,
instead a movie we chose not to go to.
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